The present invention relates to games and contests and more particularly to a novel method and apparatus for playing an instant lottery game employing remote vending machines which are controlled by a central computer.
There presently exists a large variety of games and other contests in which individuals may participate in the hope of winning a prize. Typical of these contests are lotteries or other games, many of which are administered by various governmental agencies. In a popular type of lottery, the game is conducted in a manner such that the operating agency prints a large number of tickets, each bearing one or more number symbols or other indicia, unique to that ticket, a group of tickets being printed and designated for a particular game having a fixed closing date. Holders of all tickets dispensed before the closing date are then eligible for a prize with the winning numbers being publicly announced after a drawing which is conducted shortly after the closing date. This type of lottery game suffers from many administrative problems, i.e. all tickets which the agency desires to dispense prior to the cut-off date must be printed and distributed to authorized representatives for dispensing purposes with sufficient time to allow the largest number of participants to obtain tickets prior to the cut-off date; all tickets are dated and are allocated to a particular drawing; any tickets not dispensed by the cut-off date cannot be used for any subsequent drawings; and these undispensed tickets must be accounted for to insure absolute honesty of the game.
Most important, from a player acceptance viewpoint, this type of lottery does not enable each participant to immediately ascertain whether he has a winning ticket or to select his own indicia.
To provide for player selection, games have been devised in which a player may select his own indicia, or combination thereof, such systems being typically referred to as a pick-your-own (PYO) system. In a typical PYO system, players make their selections upon a mark-sense card. The representative dispenses the card, accepts the required amount of money from the player and employs apparatus to validate the player's completed card. Each card is usually of the form having an original and a duplicate copy, with the representative retaining a copy and dispensing the original to the participant as an authenticated receipt.
After the closing date of each game, a representative of each administrating agency visits each agent, obtains data as to the initial and final serial numbers imprinted by the validation apparatus, resets and seals the validation apparatus for the next game cycle and receives all authenticated duplicate cards from the agent. The representative then takes all this information to a central location, where the duplicate cards are fed into a mark-sense and character scanner which reads the information thereon and inputs the necessary information into a computer peripheral (tape or deck) or directly into a computer. After the results have been determined, the computer automatically lists all winning tickets by agent and by serial number and determines the size of each prize won by calculating and dividing up the prize pools.
One of the disadvantages of such a system lies in the fact that there is an appreciable time interval between a player's purchase of a ticket and the selection of the winning ticket. The operating agency is at a disadvantage in that the cost of hiring representatives to visit each agent at the end of each game to collect the information and return it to a central location is often prohibitive and diminishes the profit to be used for public benefit. Further, the operating agency must continually monitor its imprinting devices to maintain security.